Dungeon Ecology

Hard on the heels of the Dungeon Parties post, comes this one about Dungeon Ecologies. This one was not intended to be as long as the previous one, as a lot of what was to be said in this one has been said in that one, but as with all things gaming I tend to ramble on forever and find new things to add as I am writing.

The previous article was more along the lines of what is an adventuring party. This one is more about the effects an adventuring party has on the local environs and the actual dungeon itself. To represent this post, I have trawled the net to find one of my favourite pictures from the original AD&D 1st edition Monster Manual (?) - an ankheg bursting from the ground to startle a farmer. This is kind of apt, as this colourised version of the artwork has the farmer looking very similarly dressed as one of the farmers from my Frostgrave party - I may use this as a Frostgrave scenario idea...

Like with all the images on my blog that are not my own copyright, please tell me to take it down if you are the owner and object to me using it without permission.

When I started to play AD&D again at my local club several years back, I wanted my campaign world to be believable (in as far as a fantasy setting can be). I still put most of the emphasis on playability but world coherency was also a significant part of my thought process. As mentioned in yesterday's post, "I built a little consistency and randomness into it too, to show that life was carrying on at that place even if the adventurers weren't around to see it happening".

When building the campaign world of Doggerland, I had to work out a back story for the region - accomplished by playing a few play-by-email games to build a solid timeline, then adding in a few historical characters and creating a point in time to then work from. I then added to the timeline and the current power-plays of the local area; who were the main pro/antagonists and what was likely to still be around in the environs even after the area had settled down after the last PBeM game completed. So I asked myself a few questions and worked out a few stats before putting pen to paper and making the scenarios fit the world...

Who built the dungeon and why? - Each scenario, whether hand-written or taken and adapted from a published magazine article or offical supplement, had to fit with what was going on in the main narrative. For example, at the start of the camapign, the weather in the Loidis region was in turmoil; hazardous weather limited travel, destroyed crops and basically hindered any progress for anything but the second coming of the demoness. I had a table written up linked to the phases of the moon and a random factor that stated what the weather would be like each day. Once the adventurers had solved the riddle and got the authorities in to destroy the power orb that controlled the weather, then normal patterns began to emerge again. This was a long-winded way to say that the broch in which the Cthonic druid resided had a history - it was an ancient, vitrified tower from the age of the first PBeM game and was tied to the history of the land. When the demoness was first encountered in Doggerland (I based this on details from the Temple of Elemental Evil history set out in that supplement) she was defeated, but her legacy lived on through her worshippers who still inhabited the abandoned places in the landscape awaiting her return.

Wandering Monsters had to fit in with what is in the dungeon - I made up small randomly rollable tables for encounters in and around the dungeon settings (based on the random encounter tables given in the supplements, or made up to only include monsters from the adventures I made up to keep them coherent. In other words, if a dungeon was full of, say, orcs, goblins and the like, then only those creatures plus a few standard trope wandering monsters (gelatinous cubes and the like) would be encountered there - no chance of a red dragon, for instance, as that would change the entire feel and objectives of the scenario. I also tried to fit the wandering monsters into the narrative of what was actually happening in the area around the dungeon. So, if a patrol of bandits was encountered and wiped out by the party then they had to have come from somewhere. If the scenario stated that some of the bandits at encounter location X put out patrols, then if I rolled bandits, they would be from that location and the results of the random encounter would mean that location explanation would be amended. A prime example of this was when the party had half-cleared the moathouse dungeon in the boglands near Staneford - the resident bad guy decided the heat was too much and he high-tailed it out of there with most of his followers before the party got to him.

Treasure and why monsters hoard it rather than spend it - Where do they get it from? Where do they spend it? These are questions that have always puzzled me, and to be honest I do not really have any hard and fast answers. In my campaign, the humans encountered would have earned it in some way. That said, most encounters with humans (unless boss types) resulted in poor treasure hauls; a small pouch with a few coins or the occasional magic item. Monsters, on the other hand, would be the ones that held onto magical trinkets and caskets of precious metals and gems. This doesn't really make sense to me, but as players want their characters to grow and become rich to enable them to do more in the imagined world they inhabit, I guess this strange treasure placement becomes part of the reward structure (along with gaining levels due to experience). I kind of explained this away by making it that these treasures were tribute from their lackeys, or items purloined from other adventurers who had tried to defeat them in the not so distant past. As to where the monsters could spend it, I have no idea, except maybe to pay their henchmen or bribe other bands of adventurers to let them go if they are on the point of defeat?

Re-populating a dungeon after a party has plundered it - This ruling really put my players off their stroke. After half-clearing an encounter location they would often return to civilisation to divvy-up treasure, re-equip themselves and heal in safety. Upon returning to the previous location they found that some of the rooms that they had cleared were now re-inhabited by new denizens - they were so used to playing in games where they literally just carried on from where they left off. I saw this re-population as the natural way in which societies and the natural world would re-align itself to a new situation; nature, as it is said, abhors a vacuum. If there is an ecological niche that becomes empty, then something will come along and fill it. Again, these rooms and caverns would be filled from either the nearest inhabitants expanding their demesne (possibly with new recruits) or by a wandering monster using the newly vacated area as a new home (and a new source of food in some cases).

Effects on the local human population when adventurers hit the town (or village) - This is also another item that is very rarely covered in the rulebooks. A band of adventurers rock up in a small village after plundering a dungeon, loaded down with coinage, gems, looted weaponry, and boastful stories. Where can they spend their ill-gotten gains? A small village would hardly be able to provide what the adventurers require - there is no Ye Olde Shoppe of Magicke like in the main cities (not that I use those in my camapigns anyway). So, they may be able to spend some treasure on finer lodgings, gambling and getting outrageously drunk on alcohol and satiated on fine food. However, villages can really only offer a brief respite from the harsh realities of the adventuring world and a means of re-stocking basic requirements; weapon and armour repairs, bows and arrows, lower class armours, food supplies, beasts of burden, maybe a riding horse or cart and local hirelings, as well as the usual R&R services.

Towns would only be a marginal step up but there would still not be enough on which the adventurers could spend their coins. So, what to do? There was one occasion during my last campaign that a fighter set up a fortification within the remains of the moat house in the fens. This cost a lot to do, so was a good way of spending his money, but it was a rare event albeit in keeping with 9th level fighters establishing a fortress according to the rulebooks.

Next step up are the cities; these allowed for at leaset one extra thing to be accomplished - training. Provided there was an NPC of the same class and a couple of levels higher than what the PC required, gold could be spent on a one-for-one swap for XP.

So, in reality, there is not a lot a band of adventurers can spend their gains on except a re-stock of arms and armour, rest and recuperation, maybe a bit of training, and having fun, with the local denizens trying to find ways of relieving the party of their cash and trinkets where they can.

But, the effect on the local economy can be catastrophic after the adventurers leave. All that excess gold and silver in the economy would artificially hike prices so that the local populace can no longer afford basic supplies and amenities. All the items that the party purchase would leave the town or village short of certain goods that may not be replaceable, and if there are any deaths due to hirelings being killed whilst away on an adventure, or in bar-room brawls then there will be a lot of widows and orphans. Who will look after them?

Again, this tended towards a longer than expected post, but, like all of my posts, they are written off the cuff and tend to ramble to wherever my thoughts take me. There is a kind of an idea in my head of what I want to cover but it never comes out how I envision it. I hope it makes sense and is coherent enough for you to get something from it.

Dungeon Parties

This post is primarily aimed at those involved in dungeon crawling adventures of the Dungeons and Dragons type. There is a blog, Hobgoblinry (see December '20 and January '21 entries) that I am currently reading that spurred me to put finger to keyboard as the author is currently going through the same thought processes as I am (although much further along the path than I am at the moment).

As a kid, when AD&D had just been released, I was involved in many of these types of adventure and they played a perfect role in my development as both a player and Dungeon Master. I lost myself in many a mega-dungeon, creating characters, fantasy tribes, and all sorts of menageries to inhabit the sprawling underground warrens I had created from my imagination. At the time, internal consistency did not matter.

Even when I restarted DMing (still using AD&D rules, even though I had toyed with Version 3 and Pathfinder in the meantime) a few decades later at my then local club, play was still more important than world building. However, I did pay lip service to a kind of internal organisation where the monsters weren't just sitting in their rooms waiting for adventurers to poke their noses in before attacking them. I built a little consistency and randomness into it too, to show that life was carrying on at that place even if the adventurers weren't around to see it happening. So, as a result of a little bit of maturing as both a player and DM on my part, my games were a little more coherent and made a little more sense from a player's point of view; there was something tangible that they could get their teeth into - something with a living background.

Fast forward another couple of years and I began to play 5th Edition (only played so far, not DMd yet). There seemed to be a big difference in style of play. Gone were the games with anywhere up to 15 players with an interesting array of different character classes; now we were in the realms of a limited number of charcters (5 or 6) that were hard-hitting and skilled up to the nines. I like both styles of play, but they are very different. Often, though, after a 5th edition game, when I looked back on the adventures of that particular session, I felt something was missing.

Today, I no longer live near that RPG club, and lockdown has prevented me from finding new players in the new area in which I now live. I am blessed in my friendships, as I am able to partake of a play-by-email sci-fi RPG to keep my gaming pangs at bay, but I still want some tabletop action. As a result, I have been trying to get my gaming fix in the solo arena. Frostgrave has grabbed my attention lately as it involves a party of adventurers looking for treasure in a long abandoned city. It is a game that seems to involve a larger than 5th Edition party, so it has got my creative juices flowing.

Now, I want to try to recreate some of those lovely adventures I had as a kid, so my thoughts turned to AD&D again as a source of inspiration. Unfortunately I no longer own a copy, but the wraparound cover of my trusty Players' Handbook kept hoving into view in my mind's eye (see the picture below)...

 

 

This picture portrayed to me, as an early adventurer in mega-dungeons, what a party should look like. The characters have just beaten a gang of troglodytes (or whatever) and are now ransacking the temple they were set to guard. Each member of the party has his/her own tasks to perform. Fighters are standing guard and cleaning weapons after the melee, the wiser ones are discussing what to do next with what looks like the party leader, and the lackeys (thieves, hirelings and henchmen) are collecting and collating the treasure.

So, what do we have here in this simple, almost throw away picture? I see a few hardy combat type figures, a couple of thieves, with a wizard and wise priest/monk fellow that most likely comprise the main player characters. These are backed up by a small force of hirelings, or NPCs, who carry the party's gains and clean up after them. Eleven people (in sight anyway - how many others are in the temple room and beyond the left-hand door?) are involved in this escapade.

Back in the day (when I was not yet a teenager) we played several characters at a time to increase the size of the party. Each time I wanted to take the party down a mega-dungeon (randomly rolled and huge, sprawling affairs) I made sure that there were enough people to carry the purloined and plundered treasures held within. Not only did I hire men-at-arms on a handful of silver pieces per day, but I also bought sacks, caskets and mules with panniers to carry all of the imagined treasure in them. Many of the hirelings were just local toughs (cheaper than a man-at-arms) brought along to hold torches and guide the mules. Very rarely were they called into a melee, but if they were, it meant that the players' party itself had failed and a TPK (Total Party Kill) was on the cards. Often many were left outside the dungeon to guard the entrance and create a safe base to return to at each break of play to dump off hoarded treasure and to heal up, replenish spells and maybe even level up. These NPCs provided the pool of talent from which new 1st level characters would be recruited if current party members died.

This method of playing was not an intentional way of adhering to the encumbrance rules set out in the rulebooks, but it did kind of get around it. It also served the purpose of giving a more realistic approach to how a dungeon would be plundered - a multi-layered approach that included a supply base, support infrastructure and a safe place to return to if badly beaten up. In real life, a handful of people would not journey into the darkness below, it would be a large undertaking that would involve many from the local environs. A band of adventurers would be seen in some instances as a means to earn a few pieces of silver.

Belated Season's Greetings

This is just a quick post to wish everyone a very happy New Year, and hope that it brings a lot more happiness and good things than the last one did.

I had a very quiet Christmas and New Year holiday due to the lockdowns in place - Tier 4 for most of it. As a result, I couldn't see the kids (one daughter caught Covid-19 but was, thankfully, hardly affected, and my other daughter was sent home twice from school due to class mates having it but, luckily, she never caught it - the boys have been totally unaffected so far (fingers crossed)) for my allotted period of custody, but we were able to luckily squeeze in a quick present swap just before Christmas between different enforced isolation events.

I didn't get much in the way of gaming stuff as gifts this year, but lots of nice things none-the-less; I am very lucky to have a kind and generous family and bunch of friends. However, I did get this little poster that now has pride of place above the reading chair in the lounge (apologies for the poor photo - there seems to be lots of relection and shadow due to the way the lighting is in the room)...

I really like it and it will show visitors (when we are allowed them again) what I am interested in, and hopefully spark some interesting conversations (and conversions to gaming?).

I managed to blog a couple of times over the holiday period about my ideas for a new Frostgrave campaign. I have still been tinkering away with this in the background but I have come to yet another impasse of sorts; a couple of problems in the form of a lack of adversaries and scenery.

Due to the nature of most of my gaming in the past, I have plenty of historical miniatures and a great number of human adventurers for fantasy games but very few actual monsters. As a result, I will need to tailor my forays into Frostgrave with the beasties that I have, namely: a few giants and trolls, some hobgoblins (two types at the moment), some kobolds and a few blister packs of skeletons.

With regards my scenery, I have mentioned previously that one of my cats took a liking to my gaming storage boxes as a litter tray and spoiled most of it (as well as a huge number of my paints).

I think I can see a way out of these predicaments though. Firstly, Frostgrave is promoted as a game that can be played using whatever accessories one has available even though there is an official miniatures range to support the game - it even mentions in a few of the supplements and rulebooks to use grey blocks as buildings and to proxy miniatures if those required for a scenario are unavailable. So, taking those words to heart, I bought myself a can of grey primer spray from a local car spares shop on Saturday just gone (Halfords for those of you in the UK), in order to spray up whatever detritus I can find in the recycle bins.

Secondly, with regards miniatures, I will create a narrative that will utilise the miniatures I have - if a scenario calls for skeletons but I only have hobgoblins, then that is what the adversaries will be. I will also set myself a monthly gaming budget in order to add to these in an orderly way. I will also need lots of paint, but I will get these a few jars at a time.

So, not really a set of New Year's resolutions, but I aim to try to achieve the following...

• Play games where and when I can, and not rely on having to have the correct stuff for it - proxy things to enable gaming to actually take place
  
• Use/re-use/recycle to make scenery items - base and add to them in time as I see fit
  
• Only buy new, or scour eBay for second hand, miniatures when required and stick to my allotted monthly budget
• Only buy paints when required and only those colours actually needed
• Paint whatever miniatures I buy within a month of getting them home/delivered
• Begin painting more of the huge backlog of miniatures I already have (Lord of the Rings stuff, I am looking at you here) and perhaps catalogue them so I can get an idea of the scale of the task at hand?
  

With regards projects, I have been reading several blogs recently and many people seem to be using the Rule of Three - i.e. only ever have three projects on the go at any one time to stop the butterfly (ooh, shiny) effect and to put a stop to too much procrastination. My current projects are as follows (in order of current importance):

1. Frostgrave - play solo adventures with whatever miniatures and scenery I already own and immerse myself in the narrative/world building
2. Lord of the Rings - try to get those armies painted and maybe some solo gaming done (rules will need to be resolved, but I have some ideas on how to achieve this)
3. Dungeons and Dragons - work towards a new campaign for when lockdown expires
4. And, on the back-burner - try to create a new play-by-email game set in my world of Doggerland

So, this means concentrating on miniature painting and scenery making for Frostgrave and Lord of the Rings primarily, alongside written work for the other two projects. Lots to look forward to, I just hope I can keep up the enthusiam and not get distracted too much by real life.

Balthazar's Warband

This is the second post regarding Balthazar and his minions. The first post detailed the gathering of the warband and the very beginning of their journey, this post details their stats and a few more insights into how I am going to play this warband.

For this campaign, I am going to run the warband as if they are completely raw recruits. I am not giving Balthazar the usual 400 Gold Crowns to purchase a warband of his choice, I will be assigning him just eight basic soldiers for free. In the story, Balthazar has cajoled his apprentice and eight local toughs (Thugs in game terms) to accompany him to Felstad to seek their fortunes.

Every time there has been a choice in character creation, I have randomly rolled it. Therefore, Balthazar is from the Elementalist school of magic as that is what was rolled. All of his spells have also been randomly rolled, so he will need to cope with all eventualities thrown at him without a balanced and selected list of offensive, defensive and "useful" spells.

Balthazar Blimp, Wizard...

Balthazar's spell book consists of ...

Dave, Apprentice...

Balthazar's followers - eight Thugs...

At the start of the campaign, the eight thugs in Balthazar's warband are all armed with farm implements - to all intents and purposes these are the equivalent of hand weapons. At the end of each scenario, I will randomly roll (10% cumulative per scenario completed that resets after each success) to see if each thug improves their clothing (warmer layers, better boots etc.) and weaponry (i.e. to a club, axe, sword etc.), even though this will not have any effect on how they play as soldiers. This will be used as a visual clue that shows the look and feel of the members of the warband changing as time moves on - it shows them developing as characters in a story. In real terms, it means I can paint up and use different figures to depict each character as they develop.

During a scenario it is going to be assumed that the soldiers get rich from what they find laying around that Balthazar does not claim - trinkets, silver and copper coins, cheap jewellery pieces and nicer weapons than those they already have (although, as already stated above, these have no effect on their stats etc.) - Balthazar will be getting the results of the rolls on the treasure token table at the end of each game.

Experience points will be used to improve Balthazar's stats, but the treasure he gains can be used to improve the soldiers themselves. I am going to assume that if Balthazar wants to improve a soldier he can pay the GC cost to "upgrade" him - in game terms this is just replacing one type of soldier with another, but in story terms this takes into account purchasing new arms and armour for the soldier needing an upgrade and paying for some training to get him up to scratch in whatever new role he will need to play. Specialist soldiers will still need to be bought, however, as those particular skills cannot be taught.

If a soldier is lost in action, then he can be replaced either by a new thug (another villager that arrives from Standof) or a new soldier in the form of one that can be purchased at full price. This is the tim ewhen specialist soldiers can be recruited to join the warband. Thieves can be "purchased" by swapping the stats of an existing soldier and saying in story terms that the soldier was more adept at that role than as a thug, or a thief can be recruited from Standof when a previous warband member dies.

Balthazar and his followers head out of Standof on their journey to Felstad...

 

 

Just after sun-up, the party stumbled out of the barn attached to the Star Inn to gather their belongings before heading north. Sore heads from the drinking of the night before were nursed as each member saw fit, and packs were shouldered. This was to be the adventure of a lifetime; riches untold of and stories undreamed of were to be experienced and hopefully returned to the snug of the alehouse.

Frostgrave 2nd Edition: My First Warband

It took me a while to get around to this what with real life getting in the way; Covid, redundancy and a general lack of motivation due to these issues. I was hoping to get these details up onto the blog and get in some playing action last month, but I just never able to quite get around to it. However, what with the Christmas preparation (now that we have been locked into Tier 4 and I cannot get to see the kids this year) I have managed to free up some space on the table and photographed my initial warband. I have chosen some of my really old Citadel and Ral Partha miniatures that I painted many years ago to make up the wizard, his apprentice and their followers.

First up, here is my first Frostgrave warband in all its glory...

And some individual/paired photos of the warband itself, starting with Balthazar...

Dave, the sorceror's apprentice...

Bill and Ben, two of the more well-to-do peasants from the village of Standof...

Ant and Dec, just a couple of regular farmers...

Dick and Dom, two more regular farmers...

Bill (2) and Ted, two more fairly (un)regular farmers...

Balthazar had just heard through the grapevine (the Stars Inn), in the back water village of Standof, that the far northern city of Felstad was slowly emerging from its icy grave of a millenium. However, he found that he was a little late to the party, as the news, when it reached him via a band of travelling wizards who had already made their fortune there, was at least five years old, but due to the finding of a second major tome with cryptic clues of what may be found there, there was now renewed interest in the city.

Learning that a trip to the frozen city would be fraught with many dangers, Balthazar realised that he would need his own small warband to aid him on his mission. He cast about the village and the local farmsteads over the following few weeks, and managed to drum up, through promises, lies and various forms of coersion (bribery and blackmail), enough support for his venture.

The wizard already had an apprentice, in the form of Dave, to help carry his magical paraphernalia, but the addition of eight local toughs, he thought, should hopefully be enough for him to visit the city. The ancient magics contained within the mouldering tomes he would find in the ruins would be reward enough for him, but the lure of the ample treasure that is there for the taking also piqued his interest and convinced his followers.

The party left on their journey bouyant and full of good beer cheer...